Go Ds

He's had over two years at another club so why are you blaming our football department?!

So one team has 7 games at the G vs 9th, 11th, 12th, 14th, , 16th, 17th and 18th And another (also Melbourne -based) plays 9th in Perth and 10th in Adelaide as well as 1st, 2nd, 5th,6th and 8th That ain't fair. But it is plausible.

And if a team is 23-0 and lose the GF to 4th or 5th who finished the H&A season 14-9 is that a mockery too? What about the Bulldogs in 2016? Were there loud roars of laughter for months after? I think the majority of people were thrilled both that a side came from 7th and broke along premiership drought. Did people think Hawthorn were the better side that year, even though they were bundled out in straight sets? And I don't need to mention our two horror final seasons in 22-23. It's always been the case that you need to be good in the minor season but great in the finals. As per my above comment/scenario I have described a great finals series performance. You seem to be stuck on the 10th placing or the fact that that team won only half their games. Of course teams don't deliberately slack off and only aim at 10th, and it's very likely that bad luck has cruelled such a team's season until the final mont anyway. I wouldn't want a team say from 14th or 16th to win the whole thing. I just don't think tenth (winning the flag) is that embarrassing especially given bad, unlucky and unfair fixturing. I think such an amazing five weeks by a team deserves huge praise rather than scoffs (especially if they were a gun team who were having a nightmare season.) Anyway this isnt a big deal. I too doubt a team can win from 10th. But funnily enough sport does stuff where new records are broken, even after we had written off such feats as possible. (And gee, given the expectations of Melbourne this year .... And many decades of mainly frustration, it'd be so hilarious and so satisfying if we somehow scrape into tenth and do the impossible this year, and even win that Grand final at the MCG we've all hoped would just happen after Perth. 😂)

Wow! So you only do things that are "in fashion"? Oh, please! Youd be the most boring person on the planet if you're only doing really common things constantly. By the way afternoon television on free to air is awash with quiz shows. I'm pretty sure a huge number of pubs still have weekly trivia nights and I'd be surprised if there's not still a page with quizzes in the newspapers. I have no idea how quizzes rank on popularity scales. But seriously, Mr Vanilla, if you're not interested in something just jog on!

Roys? Dunstall kicking a couple of late goals meant Melbourne jumped Geelong....

So if , say, St Kilda are 5-6 this season and then beat 7th interstate, come back and beat 5th at the MCG, then beat 4th also interstate and then complete this five weeks stretch by beating first and second would you not suddenly think St Kilda might actually be the real deal? How about if instead this hypothetical team was Hawthorn? I don't know about you but I think a side beating five top eight sides in five weeks including the top two and including two interstate trips has as good as announced themselves. Now the thing is if instead of happening midyear a team did this in September, without that extra bye their opponents got, and always playing sudden death games and not once playing a team that, unlike mid year almost could have considered that matchup a dead rubber, now shouldn't be primed snd ready and have so much more at stake especially on grand final day - surely these five high-pressure victories would be incredibly impressive. I think any side winning against five of the best teams all in five weeks is almost guaranteed to be a deserving Premier. I certainly wouldn't want wildcards to be 14th or 16th on the later and I don't particularly love the idea of a team getting a wild card entry with 10 wins and 13 losses (thus I'm not incredibly eager about wildcards being added). But overall I can't see how the most impressive finals campaign ever should be scoffed at if tenth somehow beat every one and win the grand final. Short of almost all of the final eight teams copping horrendous injuries late in the season or having incredibly -Guinness book of records level -unlucky finals I really don't think it would be a mockery.

Agree with your first two paragraphs. We did go above and beyond in 18 and 21.

ESPECIALLY 1987. It so much fun following Melbourne in that last five or six weeks of that season culminating in somehow dad taking us the other side of town to see Melbourne beat the Bulldogs at their home. I was just thrilled to be sitting at the MCG and actually be watching our boys run out onto the field in an official final. But f*****g hell! Maybe I exaggerate but Todd Viney, who couldn't kick to save himself, kics an impressive goal probably in the first 25 seconds. The remaining 119 minutes almost felt like Melbourne were the Harlem Globetrotters for the day. To win a final by 118 points suddenly for the first time ever maybe, just maybe, our side really were the genuine deal!

@Macca 11 hours ago, Macca said: We were surprised finalists in '87, '98, '04, '18 (?) & '21 (?) . I reckon in exact order the latest was the most likely going all the way back to the least likely in 87. Have people forgotten how incredibly close we were to making finals in 2017 and 2020?! Seriously! We started 2020 in Perth away against West coast and played an hour after it was announced that the season was off indefinitely and perhaps would be cancelled. Then almost 3 months later we come back establish a five goal half time lead against Carlton and hold on for a point win. Instead of playing Essendon the week after we got a bye at the worst possible moment. We play Geelong the week after who incidentally had just lost to Carlton and here we were I'm sure wanting to resolve the fade out the previous game playing TWO WEEKS LATER against an eventual grand finalist who had just had two games compared to our one (twice as many) after the enforced three-month break. When eventually we needed a bye ,guess what, we were totally cooked. Remember those 5 or 6 days up in Cairns? If we just come off a bye I reckon we have one or two wins against those two lowly sides that embarrassed us. Instead we see Collingwood and Bulldogs just scrape ahead of us, even after a controversial decision to decided that bont had kicked a goal rather than a point against WC to give them an extra four premiership points. I was never going to bet my life-savings we would make the finals in 2021 but certainly I was more than quietly confident.

I dunno. But he was the guy who screamed out Eureka after he worked out how to measure the density of gold when he was in the bath. Maybe he'd find what is golden among our team and what is hollow .

I think the consensus is that it's hollow that a team in the bottom half of the ladder could still gets a final or two. Of course 9th and 10th will love it each year. I'm not sure that the goals change that much. Already teams that come 8th, maybe 5 wins behind the minor Premier, probably don't genuinely expect to win the flag. But it was and it was still be that every team knows that if they are very good in September say like Bulldogs back in 2016 then maybe a miracle can happen. Geez it'd be hilarious if if everything falls into place with King etc and we win ,say, six of our last seven games , scrape into 10th and some how from there win those five games and ,same as Bulldogs , do something people probably never thought could happen. 😂 We saw Hawthorn a year and a bit ago go from also-rans to arguably the third best team and of course our Dees did similar in 1987. It really would be possible that aside that got back players from injury and/or finally found its mojo in August , has a bit of luck in September, and if especially the training program or style of play or uninjured best 24 has them running rings around their opponents who knows maybe this would feel like the year in World War I where with only 4 teams the wooden Spooner also won the flag.

Don't forget Tracc only played half of 2024 and still almost kicked as many goals as he did in 2025. Apparently he dropped from 1.08 goals per game in 24 to 0.78 last year.

...and wasn't actually me who said this. 😂

Archimedes was taken.

It's so hard to know. And sorry for going over old ground here. But the article does discuss other teams too.